By Staff
Special to The Star
March 16, 2001
A performance by Croatian native and guitarist Dr. Miroslav Loncar will highlight Saturday's (March 17) concert of the Meridian Symphony Orchestra.
The fourth performance of the subscription season, "The Majesty of Spain," will begin at 8 p.m. in the Emma McCain Theater at Ivy Hall, on the Meridian Community College campus.
Before the performance, Loncar and Claire Fox Hillard, MSO music director and conductor, will present an informative preview of the evening's concert. The lecture will begin at 7:15 p.m. at the Casteel Gallery in the L.O. Todd Library. The two will discuss the evening's music, and answer questions from the audience.
Loncar currently lives in Hattiesburg, where he directs the guitar program at William Carey College. He received both his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Academy of Music in Graz, Austria, where he studied classic guitar with Marga Baumi and Martin Myslivicek. He received his doctor of musical arts degree from the University of Southern Mississippi.
For 15 years, Loncar has toured both Europe and the United States. Along with J.S. Bach and contemporary Latin American composers, his solo performances also include music from Croatia. In 1999, he gave solo and chamber performances in Chicago and Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Croatian Embassy. In 1992, his presentation on Croatian music was a featured event at the Guitar Foundation of America Festival.
In 1988, Loncar was a national-level finalist in the Music Teacher National Association Wurlitzer Collegiate Artists Competition. In 1985, the Klasinc &Loncar Guitar Duo was selected "Best Guitar Duo" at the International Guitar Competition Toyoko Yamashita in Berlin.
In addition to solo performing, Loncar is active as a chamber musician. The Mississippi Touring Artists Commission has endorsed both of his chamber series the Klasinc &Loncar Duo and Trio Bolero.
Loncar has released three recordings a solo album, one with Trio Bolero and another with the Klasinc &Loncar Duo. He has been featured on Public Radio in Mississippi's "Profiles."
Saturday's MSO concert will include works by Manuel de Falla, Joaquin Rodrigo, Joaquin Turina and Juan Crisostomo Arriga.
Rodrigo, who composed "Concierto de Aranjuez, 1939," was blind from the age of 3 and composed the concierto in Paris in 1939. He dedicated it to Regino Sainz de la Maza, who premiered it the following year to immediate critical acclaim.
Turina's "La oracion del torero, 1925" was music so popular and overwhelming to him, he promptly scored the expressive music for string quartet and, eventually, for string orchestra.
Arriga, composer of "Symphony in D Major, 1825," was often referred to as a "Spanish Mozart." His symphony reflects the lightly textured Italian style of his day and his cast in the traditional, four-movement symphonic mold, much like a Mozart symphony.
Tickets for Saturday's performances are $15 for adults, $12 for senior citizens/military and $8 for students. Children under 12 will be admitted free. Tickets may be purchased at the door.
For more information, call the symphony office at 693-2224 or e-mail mdnsymph@Mississippi.net.